A 419 Fraud Story

The Guardian explores the shady world of the Nigerian ‘419’ advance fee fraud

Patient as fishermen, the young men toil day and night, trawling for replies to the emails they shoot to strangers half a world away. Most recipients hit delete, delete, delete, without ever opening the messages that urge them to claim the untold riches of a long-lost deceased second cousin, or offer millions of dollars to help smuggle loot stolen by a corrupt Nigerian official.

But the few who actually reply make this a tempting and lucrative business for the boys of Festac, a suburb of Lagos in Nigeria at the center of the cyber-scam universe. The targets are called maghas - slang from a Yoruba word meaning fool.